


Viva La Vida

by LeiatheRebel



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 11:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10535343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeiatheRebel/pseuds/LeiatheRebel
Summary: ***Spoilers for Kadara in Mass Effect-After The Collective takes over, the not-so model prisoner Kaetus waits for death.





	

The Collective had left water and paste by the door, but Kaetus refused to touch it or even let the plate meet his eyes. It had been days since he breathed in the air tinged by sulfur. It had been days since he felt the breeze graze his face, but it didn’t matter. Nothing seemed like it mattered anymore. Sloane Kelly, his Sloane, was dead. 

Sloane was not invincible, Kaetus was aware. During the battles against the Kett, Sloane had been grazed by Kett bullets, bitten by their animals, and nearly struck blind in one eye. But she always got back up. That was her unofficial motto. Even when she was thrown off the Nexus, she always knew to never take a kick to the mouth. It was that fire, that raw energy, that she used to liberate Kadara and the exiles, and it was with that fire that she died. It was like a bad dream. A worst case scenario. 

At first he heard the panicking echo of voices down the hall, fellow outcasts that had been detained once The Collective officially set up shop in Kadara port. The panicking had slowly begun to cease and he thought the worst. 

He huddled up in the far corner of the prison cell, still feeling the bandages, made sticky with medi-gel, clinging too tightly around his head and abdomen. The headaches, more like violent head tremors, had been plaguing him on and off since the beating. The Doctor, before the Outcasts took to the Badlands promised the medication would help. It did not. 

It was the dragging of the rusted metal door that cast Kaetus out of his self loathing and alerted him to the source.   
Laughter: “looky here, Kaetus you’ve got a friend.” 

Two Turian Collective agents dragged in a limp body. It was definitely a human, likely a male, that they had been holding upright in between them. He was beaten too, badly, but they took no care in patching him up, Kaetus saw the blood drip from his mouth like a leaky faucet. 

They threw the body against the cold ground and locked the door. It was just Kaetus and the body now and Spirits only knew when the poor beaten bastard was going to stir. He tried to inch closer to see who this person might be. If it were an Outcast, maybe he knew about Sloane? Maybe he knew who killed her? 

Suddenly, he heard throaty chuckling coming from the body and he saw their blood caked palms glide upward in order to hold themselves upright. Their arms were shaking as if they couldn’t handle their own body weight and the more they rose, the more violent their coughing had become. 

“Woah, pal, take it easy. They got you bad.” Kaetus exclaimed, surprised and unsettled by the softness of his own voice. 

“Bad bunch of bastards.” This man responded with a slight chuckle, as he wiped the blood from his mouth. 

Kaetus knew that accent from anywhere. 

“Reyes? The smuggler?” Kaetus stated, trying to help him sit upright, despite the screaming of the wounds underneath his bandages. 

Another laugh: “Reyes Vidal at your service,” Reyes said before erupted into coughing, “though I wish it were under better circumstances.” 

“Wh-what happened? Last I heard you were playing too nice with the Pathfinder!” Kaetus asked. 

“Yeah, well, you know what happens right? She stopped speaking to me soon after The Tempest disembarked. No emails or anything,” Reyes paused his eyes full with worry, but not for himself, “Word about Sloane’s death spread quickly. I’m sorry that happened.” 

“They didn’t give me much information. The Collective only told me she was killed avenging me.”

“The Collective. They lured her into the badlands. It was a duel.” Reyes explained, his eyes locked on the tiled floor.

Kaetus was baffled: “Damn it. Sloane should’ve won. This doesn’t make any sense…” 

Reyes wiped the blood from his brow: “details were scarce, no one knows what really happened. Only the Charlatan could really tell you.” 

“Was their identity revealed? Who are they? I need to know.” Kaetus sprung toward Reyes like a wounded creature, weakly grasping out of desperation.

“The Angaran Ambassador to Sloane, Keema, is running things now. People believe she was the true Charlatan all along,” Reyes explained, “I trusted her. Now look at me!” Reyes gestured to the dried blood that covered his grey uniform. His hair, usually neat and gelled backwards, grazed his forehead with thick strands of black hair pinned to his skin with sticky blood. 

He continued: “I got word of Outcasts in the Badlands. They were paying big to get some basic food and water purifiers. They had families and children out there. I couldn’t let them suffer, despite my allegiances. I agreed to do it. I hoped my less than professional relationship with Sara would get me a free pass if I was caught, but- well- you see what happened.” 

Kaetus was awed: “but surely Sara could stop this. She could get you out of this right?”   
“Sara will not be informed of my execution. They’ll have a cover story in place. She, Sara,” he corrected, “knows my line of work is dangerous. Why wouldn’t she believe that I was attacked by criminal gangs or jumped by a rival, you know? She’s a very busy woman. I’m sure she'll grieve and move on.” Reyes said with a pained wry smile. 

Kaetus knew that Sloane had been keeping tabs on the Pathfinder since she had docked on Kadara. They had gotten wind from Umi and various Outcast spies posted around Kadara Port that something else was going on. Reyes began walking around Kadara with a spring in his step like a lovelorn fool. He was a man of secrets who began to burst at the seams with admiration for the Pathfinder. It was pathetic, really. Kaetus was certain, that if anyone approached Reyes with polite conversation, he would burst with compliments and deep winded sighing for her. The flirting. Spirits, the flirting! According to Umi, it was like a Pyjack in heat: agonizing to hear, and awkward to be privy to. Kaetus cleared his throat and looked at Reyes now and saw the inner mechanisms of Reyes’s mind begin to whir to life. He was deep in thought, hopelessly so, and Kaetus knew exactly what he was doing. 

“Don’t, Reyes, thinking back to the better only makes waiting for death more unbearable.” Kaetus whispered, feeling the breath in his battered torso continue its hasty escape. 

“What was she like? Sloane Kelly was a legend of Kadara port, but you knew her as a woman. As awkward as it sounds, we both had the same affliction. We fell in love with women who will be written into history books.” A wistful sigh emerged from Reyes’s lips. 

“Tell me about it,” Kaetus began, his eyes widening, surprised by the liveliness, “Sloane is, well, was confident. Filled to the brim with confidence and swagger. Your Sara never knew she what she was going to be. She stumbled into it. Sloane knew she was going to make her mark on history. She was so sure of it, but I bet she had no idea how brief that mark would be. It’s awfully sad to think about. I don't want to think about it anymore.” He said that last sentence like a sorrowful child. 

Reyes shifted closer to Kaetus, “Sara had these lofty plans to build an outpost on Kadara. She was going to begin to work with the exiles and give them better chances. She thought she could fix our water problems. A big fucking optimist and, God, did I love her for it. There was never a “no we can’t” there was always a yes we can.” 

Kaetus sighed: “Sloane was wicked smart. She had all of these secret hideouts in the Badlands. When things started getting grim, she’d just ride off into the sunset. Real, what was the term?, cowboy-like. It wasn’t until things started getting serious that I’d sneak off with her. We’d have dinner under the stars after spending the day burying Collective spies in the water pools and in the desert dust. The juxtaposition was crazy, but I guess, so was our relationship. How about you?” 

Reyes didn’t say anything. He just stared blankly at the grey wall in front of him, the nooks and crannies of the shitty paint job had light flecks of crimson. Most of it was Kaetus’s doing. 

“Sara and I stopped the murders on the port. Then she helped me clear out some business rivals, including my ex Zia. She stood up for me then, calling me a good man, I didn’t -and still don’t- think I deserve such a title. It is nice knowing that someone out there believes that you are the person that you want to be right before you die.” Reyes said, wiping a conglomeration of blood and tears from the side of his right eye. 

“It is nice dying right after you had everything you ever wanted.” Kaetus murmured. 

There was a sound of footsteps that echoed down the hall inching closer to the cell. Two guards, not the same ones from before, entered the cell: grabbing Reyes by the throat and dragging him toward the hallway. Kaetus crawled toward them, using all the strength he could muster. The door slammed quickly, just before he could at least weakly fight them off. 

Suddenly he saw a fellow Turian emerge from the shadows and he crouched to meet Kaetus’s eyes. “ I am here to get some questions from you, Kaetus. We can do this real easy like. Or I can start pulling at your mandibles. Which one is it?” 

“Please, my men are in that other room. Another man is there too, Reyes Vidal. They must be spared, please, I’ll tell you everything! Only if you spare all of them.” Kaetus responded: the words exploded from his mouth. 

“Woah, woah woah slow down, buddy,” The other Turian said with a laugh, “this ain’t a race. I hear you loud and clear. Now the Charlatan has a list of questions. The usual questions: passwords, locations, etc. give them to us and we’ll, well, call it even. Your men are freed: including the Smuggler.” 

Kaetus sighed, defeated but certain in the righteousness of what he was doing: “do you have a pad and paper?”

Kaetus promised Sloane in the event of his capture that he would never divulge any information. Sloane, however, is dead and if this meant his men could be spared, he was willing to die too. His silence has kept him alive so far, but it was his words that would liberate him. Maybe, if the humans were right, there would be a heaven above. Maybe there he could be with her again.

He told them everything. Everything he thought about. The secret caches, supplies, and the secret pile of protection credits that they hid away. It meant nothing to him now. 

“Thank you for your time-” Suddenly he heard the chatter of a headset coming from the other Turian’s head. Someone was listening. The Charlatan no doubt. 

The other Turian spoke again: “the Charlatan has agreed to release your men.”

“Tell Keema to get down here. I want to see the Charlatan before I die. I want them to look her right in the eyes before I’m executed.” Kaetus spat. 

He heard a voice echo from the far corner of the room, concealed in the blackness of shadow, “that can be arranged Kaetus.” 

He knew that voice from anywhere: “no it’s…you… You’re the Charlatan.”

Reyes emerged from the shadows, wearing a different outfit now: more casual with less “blood” staining it. 

Reyes took a cloth to his face to wipe off the remaining dashes of crimson and took a long swig of whatever was in the cup that he held in his right hand.

“Everything you told me was a lie. Everything about Sara, Keema, even your injuries.”

The look on Vidal’s face was almost childlike. He looked like a kid caught in a lie, his eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

“Did you kill Sloane? Don't you dare lie to me.” Kaetus bellowed.

“Not technically. That was a sniper’s handiwork,” Reyes coldly chuckled, “I was always quick on the draw.”

Reyes pulled out the gun from his holster and looked at it for a second as if it was an alien instrument, as if he, the grand Charlatan was hesitating. 

“Does Sara know you have all that blood on your hands?” Kaetus spat, “you were right. You’re not a great man at all, you’re nothing but a lying co-”

Bang. 

Kaetus’s head recoiled backward and smacked against the cold floor. His blue blood began to seep into the deep grey floor. 

Reyes’s mouth twitched as he turned away from the body. 

“Send scouts out to the badlands, we will reunite our dead with their families.” Reyes spoke quietly.

“Sir, what about the body right here?” The Turian asked. 

Reyes turned to face the Turian now with hollow eyes that seemed almost remorseful: “find Sloane and bury them together in the Badlands underneath the stars. And clean up this damn mess.” 

Reyes would never step foot in the basement of the Collective base again.


End file.
